EVGA was quite keen to announce that its hardware, thanks to the impressive overclocking skills of K|NGP|N, is currently holding no less than six 3DMark World Records, including the recently released Fire Strike "Ultra" preset.

In the capable hands of one of the top overclockers around, Vince "K|NGP|N" Lucido, EVGA's X99 motherboards, EVGA GTX 980 Classified graphics cards and EVGA SuperNOVA PSUs, are currently in the top when it comes to overclocking and 3DMark benchmark.

Vince "K|NGP|N" Lucido currently holds six world records including 3DMark Fire Strike score of 19,811, 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme score of 9,617 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra score of 5,007, all on a single-card as well as 3DMark Fire Strike score of 40,338, 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme score of 28,059 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra score of 16,243, all on 4-way SLI system.

Futuremark, a company best known for its 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks is now a part of Underwriters Laboratories, a US-based global independent safety science company that has been around for over a century.

According to Stephen Kirk, VP and GM of UL Consumer Technology Division, embedded software has become an important part of product design and with an increased focus on mobility, more and more products are becoming connected, making the Internet of Things a reality. As a result, software quality has become a rather important part of product safety and performance and benchmarking is an important way to help improve the performance of products. “This acquisition provides us with an opportunity to build a new business line in testing a wide variety of technological devices so they offer the performance, safety and privacy that consumers expect."

UL plans to increase investement in Futuremark's product developement with a bigger focus on professionaly-oriented benchmarks, similar to current Futuremark's PCMark suite.

Jukka Mäkinen, CEO of Futuremark noted that in recent years, the company has expanded to new platforms and while its software has been adopted by both the European Commission as well as national goverments and the company accomplished a lot on its own, they will be in an even better position to achieve their goals with UL. Futuremark and its current and future benchmarks will benefit from UL's labs, quality assurance and marketing.

According to Futuremark, the new acquisition will have no impact on the company and its employers or the current lineup of benchmarks.

Futuremark released an updated version of the 3DMark benchmark (version 1.3.708) for DirectX 11 systems that includes a new benchmark called Sky Diver which we had a look at this week.

The new Sky Diver benchmark is available as free update for all 3DMark owners. It is kept free through sponsorships or new users. And for a limited time, you can buy the 3DMark Advanced Edition, which includes more tests, custom settings and other features, from Steam for only $9.99 (normally $24.99).

The Sky Diver is a new DirectX 11 benchmark test for gaming laptops and mid-range PCs. It's ideal for testing mainstream graphics cards, mobile GPUs, integrated graphics and other systems that cannot achieve double-digit frame rates in the more demanding Fire Strike test. Fire Strike is a like testing a system with a modern DirectX 11 game on ultra-high settings, while Sky Diver tests a game on normal settings at 1080p.

Before we jump to test results here are some details about different tests included within the Sky Diver benchmark. Sky Diver includes a Demo, two graphics tests, a physics test and a combined test. The graphics tests measure the GPU performance, the physics test measures CPU performance, and the combined test stresses both GPU and CPU. The Demo does not affect the score.

Graphics test 1 focuses on tessellation and uses a forward lighting method with one shadow casting directional light. The test utilizes a depth of field post processing effect, which is not used in the other tests.

Physics test benchmarks the hardware’s ability to run gameplay physics simulations on the CPU. The GPU load is kept as low as possible to ensure that only the CPU is stressed. The test uses the Bullet Open Source Physics Library.

The physics test introduces a new approach that extends the performance range for which the test is relevant. The test runs through four levels of work starting with the lightest and continuing to the heaviest unless the frame rate drops below a minimum threshold. The score is calculated from the last two completed levels.

The Combined test contains both graphics workloads and physics simulations to stress the CPU and GPU. The test uses a compute shader-based deferred tiled lighting method.

We put some midrange and entry-level graphics cards to see how much they can score in Sky Driver benchmark. Please note that Sky Diver and Fire Strike scores are not comparable.

Futuremark provided a general guide which says:

- If a system scores less than 2800 in Fire Strike you should run Sky Diver.

- If a system scores more than 12000 in Sky Diver, you should run Fire Strike.

According to aforementioned instructions, configurations that we have tested are better suited for the Sky Drive benchmark.

Dual graphics (Crossfire) scaling in Sky Diver benchmark is good, and we see 47% and 75% improvements after adding discrete R7 240 and R7 250 respectively.

Futuremark has released a preview and some details regarding its new 3DMark DirectX 11 benchmark test for gaming laptops and mid-range desktop PCs, the 3DMark Sky Diver. A preview trailer shows a wing suit skydiver in a rather impressive rendered location and should, according to Futuremark, be an ideal test for benchmarking systems with mainstream DirectX 11 graphics cards, mobile GPUs and integrated graphics.

Futuremark CEO, Jukka Makinen noted that, "some people think that 3DMark is only for high-end hardware and extreme overclocking. Yet millions of PC gamers rely on 3DMark to choose systems that best balance performance, efficiency and affordability. 3DMark Sky Diver complements our other tests by providing the ideal benchmark for gaming laptops and mainstream PCs",

According to Futuremark, Sky Diver can be considered a benchmark test which is closer to a DirectX 11 game running on normal settings while Fire Strike is like a modern game on ultra-high settings.

The new 3DMark Sky Diver full benchmark test will debut at Computex on ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Galaxy, Inno3D and G.Skill booths and will be released as an update for all editions of 3DMark, including the free 3DMark Basic Edition at a later date, which will be announced during Computex.

Futuremark has released a new version of PCMark 8 that brings support for Windows 8.1 as well as fixes some issues noticed and reported with the previous version.

The biggest update for the 1.1.1111 version of the PCMark 8 is the support for Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11. In addition to the new support, the new version of the PCMark 8 also brings updated SystemInfo v4.21, more detailed hardware monitoring graphics, faster SystemInfo scanning as well as a couple of new options in the OpenCL testing tab.

Unfortunately, the PCMark 8 is still only available as the Professional Edition with a US $1,495 price tag and there is still no word on the Advanced Edition that should cost US $49.95 or the Basic one that should be free.

Futuremark’s PCMark benchmark suite is going mobile. The Finnish developer announced Tuesday that it is working on PCMark software for Android, iOS and Windows RT platforms. It also called on hardware makers to join the development.

"We take great pride in working with the top technology companies to create the best benchmarks for consumers, industry and press," said Jukka Mäkinen, Futuremark CEO. "After shaking up the mobile landscape with 3DMark we're looking forward to doing the same with a new PCMark benchmark for Android, iOS and Windows RT."

Like its desktop counterpart, PCMark for mobile platforms will feature benchmark tests based on common use scenarios, focusing on the activities and tasks that smartphone and tablet owners perform every day. It will also provide a view of real-world system performance and power efficiency.

However, it’s still under development and it is unclear when we’ll see PCMark on app stores.

It actually did not come a surprise that Futuremark is preparing the new version of its PC benchmarking utility PCMark 8, but the announcement contained a couple of surprises nevertheless. In addition to announcing the new PCMark 8, Futuremark noted that we will be able to see some new tests including the battery life testing and new Adobe and Microsoft application tests.

As it was the case with previous releases, the new PCMark 8 is also developed in partnership with some big names that are a part of Futuremark's Benchmark Development Program and which includes names like Acer, AMD, Condusiv Technologies, Dell, HGST, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Seagate and Western Digital.

In addition to standard benchmark tests that are based on common use scenarios such as browsing the web, photo editing, video chat, writing and gaming, Futuremark's new PCMark 8 will also include additional benchmark tests based on productivity and creativity applications from Adobe and Microsoft.

The new PCMark 8 will also include battery life tests and will be able to estimate battery use from each benchmark tests or loop a tests until the battery is almost empty.

As it was the case with previous PCMark benchmarks, this one will also be available in several editions including the free to download Basic Edition as well as the fully-features Professional Edition. It is compatible with both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

According to Futuremark, the PCMark 8 is in its final stages of development while the public release is expected towards the end of the Q2.

Futuremark has released a new update (v.1.1.0) for its latest 3DMark benchmarking utility that fixes low-result bug on multi-GPU systems and adds the new Ice Storm Extreme test to the Windows edition of the benchmark.

Futurmark's latest 3DMark had some problems with systems running three or four GPUs and although it was, according to Futuremark, quite a serious bug, they managed to fix it. The update should slightly increase results on systems running two GPUs and significantly on systems with three or four GPUs.

In addition to multi-GPU performance fix, the new version of the 3DMark also fixes issues caused by the Windows update KB2670838 as well as the problem with the bloom post-processing effect when using very high rendering resolutions in custom settings.

The new update also adds the new Ice Storm Extreme benchmark test to the Windows edition of the 3DMark Advanced and Professional Editions. The Ice Storm Extreme is a Direct3D feature level 9 test aimed at tablets, ultrabooks and notebooks and its new Extreme mode raises the resolution from 720p to 1080p and uses higher quality textures and post-processing effects in the graphics tests to create a more demanding load for the latest mobile devices. The new test also makes it possible to directly compare results from Windows and Android devices.

The new version can be found over at Futuremark's website while Steam Edition will be updated automatically.

Since some of the first OUYA developer consoles have already started to land in the hands of eager developers, it was just a matter of time before someone tried to benchmark it and 3DMark was an obvious choice.

The results came from James Coote, developer of the upcoming OUYA game called Executive Star, and although we did not expect much from the OUYA since it is based on Nvidia's Tegra 3 SoC paired up with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage it is still quite dissapointing to see it take 73rd and 71st place in the 3DMark Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme where it gets outperformed by many tablets and smartphones.

In case you missed it the Ice Storm test is aimed at Android smartphone or tablet devices and includes two graphics tests that should put some strain on GPU and a physics test that will measure the CPU performance. Ice Storm Extreme is quite similar but raises the resolution to 1080p and uses higher quality textures and post-processing effects. Ice Storm Extreme will also soon be available in the Windows version as well, which should allow for direct comparison of Windows and Android based tablets.

We do not doubt that games will run pretty good on OUYA, but do not expect any miracles when it comes to graphics performance and eye candy.

You can check the OUYA benchmark details here and you can find it compared to other Android running devices here.

Futuremark has now officially announced the release of an Android version of the 3DMark benchmarking software for Android. The new 3DMark for Android is developed in cooperation with many important names in the industry and should be an ideal benchmark for over 1,000 Android devices that can now be compared to devices on other platforms.

The new Android edition of 3DMark will include two benchmarks, Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme. Both benchmarks are based on OpenGL ES 2.0 and enable you to compare the performance of devices running Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows RT in order to give a better picture on what competition is offering despite the fact that it runs on different OSs.

The Ice Storm test is aimed at Android smartphone or tablet devices and includes two graphics tests that should put some strain on GPU and a physics test that will measure the CPU performance.

The Ice Storm Extreme is quite similar but raises the resolution to 1080p and uses higher quality textures and post-processing effects. The Ice Storm Extreme will also soon be available in the Windows version as well, which should allow for direct comparison of Windows and Android based tablets.

Currently, the new 3DMark is available on Android and Windows OS while Windows RT and iOS editions are expected to come soon, according to Futuremark.